5 ms·

> Even though it is probably the most practically used functional language. Would love to get some evidence to back up Erlang being the most practically used

> Even though it is probably the most practically used functional language. Would love to get some evidence to back up Erlang being the most practically used functionally used language, because for all I know, it's hardly used at all these days.

kyllo 11y ago
Practicality is subjective, though. Unless you conduct an opinion poll, you will not find data objectively demonstrating that one language is more "practical" than another.
- incepted 11y ago
  Sure, but I interpreted OP's statement as saying "used in practice" as in "used in the real world". Pretty sure that Erlang would barely register as a blip on such a chart.
  - abiox 11y ago
    RabbitMQ and CouchDB are written Erlang; Much of Ericsson's telephony infrastructure runs it; various companies in their industry like TMobile and Motorola use it.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - im_down_w_otp 11y ago
    Almost all the successful non-Google ad networks and exchanges are written in Erlang, Goldman Sachs HFT platform is written in Erlang, several massive scale game platform backends are written in Erlang, several international "national net" banking switches are written in Erlang, a huge chunk of the global land-line and mobile telco switching infrastructure is written in Erlang, Heroku's control plane is written in Erlang, GitHub's RPC backplane is written in Erlang, Amazon SimpleDB is written in Erlang, Bet365's high-scale betting platform is written in Erlang, Pinterest is migrating services to Elixir (rooted in Erlang). There's a ton of stuff written in Erlang out there. A lot of really core infrastructure services that have to just run and run and run. It's not particularly trendy, but it gets shit done, and it does so with a quiet dignity. :-)
    - mbrock 11y ago
      Do you have references for the claim about telco switching?
      - querulous 11y ago
        http://erlang.se/publications/ericsson_review_axd301_1998012.pdf http://erlang.se/publications/ericsson_review_axd301_1998012... erlang was literally developed for telephone switches
        mbrock 11y ago
        That's a product from the late nineties. I have no idea how broadly it's used today.
        mhotchen 11y ago
        A talk by Joe Armstrong I watched recently indicated that around 50% of 3G and more than that of 4G infrastructure uses Ericsson technology, specifically with swoftware written in Erlang. He made a joke about 'sweating over every bit' sent over the network and then complaining that all the apps are going crazy with their JSON. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson#Products_and_services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson#Products_and_services
        incepted 11y ago
        Erlang is mentioned only once in this entire article, and it's in the "See also" section. Nothing in this Wikipedia article supports the claim that Ericsson uses Erlang at all.
        mhotchen 11y ago
        Sorry, you're right. I was more indicating at the fact that they power a huge amount of the infrastructure of mobile and telecoms. Here's some sources that indicate that Erlang is still in daily use at Ericsson: http://www.ericsson.com/ericsson/corpinfo/publications/review/2000_03/files/2000034.pdf http://www.ericsson.com/ericsson/corpinfo/publications/revie... http://www.ericsson.com/news/141204-inside-erlang-creator-joe-armstrong-tells-his-story_244099435_c http://www.ericsson.com/news/141204-inside-erlang-creator-jo... I'm sorry I can't find the exact video I saw from Joe, but he's generally quite proud of the reach of Erlang so you'll find him stating the facts about how much of the mobile and telecoms infrastructure it supports in a few of his videos! I hope that helps.
seiji 11y ago
"practical" as in: the programing model fits the problem domain model of modern systems. But, "practical" doesn't show up on everybody's radar much these days with so much effort focused around fads-of-the-half-decade. Erlang is made by professionals with decades of experience who grow the system towards being the most stable, scalable, safe, and as understandable as possible. People use Erlang, solve problems, stay quiet, then make money using it. On the other hand, the thought leader these days seems to be Go (even though it's made by out of touch weirdos (review: http://www.evanmiller.org/four-days-of-go.html) http://www.evanmiller.org/four-days-of-go.html)) and has a creepy cult/fanatical following more suited to tribal sportsball teams than what we would expect from professional technical work needing to be stable over the long term.
- incepted 11y ago
  > Erlang is made by professionals with decades of experience Who are they, besides Joe? Can you at least provide their names? I'd really like to take a look at their credentials because beyond WhatsApp and an obscure Ericsson router from 20 years ago, there isn't much data to go by. And there is plenty of evidence to show that C, C++, Java and more recently Go have some pretty strong success stories to justify their claim to scalability.
  - exclusiv 11y ago
    Not disputing your claim, but CouchDB is quite an impressive effort built on Erlang.
    - muhmi 11y ago
      And Riak
      - arthurcolle 11y ago
        and Elixir
  - SanFranManDan 11y ago

kyllo 11y ago

Practicality is subjective, though. Unless you conduct an opinion poll, you will not find data objectively demonstrating that one language is more "practical" than another.

incepted 11y ago
Sure, but I interpreted OP's statement as saying "used in practice" as in "used in the real world". Pretty sure that Erlang would barely register as a blip on such a chart.
- abiox 11y ago
  RabbitMQ and CouchDB are written Erlang; Much of Ericsson's telephony infrastructure runs it; various companies in their industry like TMobile and Motorola use it.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- im_down_w_otp 11y ago
  Almost all the successful non-Google ad networks and exchanges are written in Erlang, Goldman Sachs HFT platform is written in Erlang, several massive scale game platform backends are written in Erlang, several international "national net" banking switches are written in Erlang, a huge chunk of the global land-line and mobile telco switching infrastructure is written in Erlang, Heroku's control plane is written in Erlang, GitHub's RPC backplane is written in Erlang, Amazon SimpleDB is written in Erlang, Bet365's high-scale betting platform is written in Erlang, Pinterest is migrating services to Elixir (rooted in Erlang). There's a ton of stuff written in Erlang out there. A lot of really core infrastructure services that have to just run and run and run. It's not particularly trendy, but it gets shit done, and it does so with a quiet dignity. :-)
  - mbrock 11y ago
    Do you have references for the claim about telco switching?
    - querulous 11y ago
      http://erlang.se/publications/ericsson_review_axd301_1998012.pdf http://erlang.se/publications/ericsson_review_axd301_1998012... erlang was literally developed for telephone switches
      - mbrock 11y ago
        That's a product from the late nineties. I have no idea how broadly it's used today.
        mhotchen 11y ago
        A talk by Joe Armstrong I watched recently indicated that around 50% of 3G and more than that of 4G infrastructure uses Ericsson technology, specifically with swoftware written in Erlang. He made a joke about 'sweating over every bit' sent over the network and then complaining that all the apps are going crazy with their JSON. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson#Products_and_services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson#Products_and_services
        incepted 11y ago
        Erlang is mentioned only once in this entire article, and it's in the "See also" section. Nothing in this Wikipedia article supports the claim that Ericsson uses Erlang at all.
        mhotchen 11y ago
        Sorry, you're right. I was more indicating at the fact that they power a huge amount of the infrastructure of mobile and telecoms. Here's some sources that indicate that Erlang is still in daily use at Ericsson: http://www.ericsson.com/ericsson/corpinfo/publications/review/2000_03/files/2000034.pdf http://www.ericsson.com/ericsson/corpinfo/publications/revie... http://www.ericsson.com/news/141204-inside-erlang-creator-joe-armstrong-tells-his-story_244099435_c http://www.ericsson.com/news/141204-inside-erlang-creator-jo... I'm sorry I can't find the exact video I saw from Joe, but he's generally quite proud of the reach of Erlang so you'll find him stating the facts about how much of the mobile and telecoms infrastructure it supports in a few of his videos! I hope that helps.

seiji 11y ago

"practical" as in: the programing model fits the problem domain model of modern systems. But, "practical" doesn't show up on everybody's radar much these days with so much effort focused around fads-of-the-half-decade. Erlang is made by professionals with decades of experience who grow the system towards being the most stable, scalable, safe, and as understandable as possible. People use Erlang, solve problems, stay quiet, then make money using it. On the other hand, the thought leader these days seems to be Go (even though it's made by out of touch weirdos (review: http://www.evanmiller.org/four-days-of-go.html) http://www.evanmiller.org/four-days-of-go.html)) and has a creepy cult/fanatical following more suited to tribal sportsball teams than what we would expect from professional technical work needing to be stable over the long term.

incepted 11y ago
> Erlang is made by professionals with decades of experience Who are they, besides Joe? Can you at least provide their names? I'd really like to take a look at their credentials because beyond WhatsApp and an obscure Ericsson router from 20 years ago, there isn't much data to go by. And there is plenty of evidence to show that C, C++, Java and more recently Go have some pretty strong success stories to justify their claim to scalability.
- exclusiv 11y ago
  Not disputing your claim, but CouchDB is quite an impressive effort built on Erlang.
  - muhmi 11y ago
    And Riak
    - arthurcolle 11y ago
      and Elixir
- SanFranManDan 11y ago